Just Listen
by SheWritesInCursive
Summary: [Oneshot] Mike&Kate slice-of-life stuff. Kate has excellent hearing.
1. Chapter 1

**_A/N:_**_ Extending my love to the MK fandom_

* * *

_i. _

"I heard that." Kate hisses under her breath, although nothing can hide her smile on a day like today. After all, the sun is high in the sky, there's a light ocean breeze and she's marrying the man of her dreams. She throws half a glance 2Dads' way, but the look of absolute horror on his face serves only to make Kate's smile grow wider. She slows in her walk down the aisle, readjusting her bouquet of flowers a little more securely in her hands and flashing a winning smile in his direction. "And no, I'm definitely _not _a virgin bride." She hisses at him.

And then, without waiting for the spluttered apology that's sure to come, she walks up the aisle towards Mike.

* * *

_ii. _

"I heard that." Kate opens one eye a fraction to squint lazily at Mike. Her husband is frozen in the act of moving his hand towards the firm mound of her belly, his face a mixture of guilt and amusement. "And you don't know it's going to be a boy." Kate adds, raising an eyebrow. "Don't give them a complex."

"I thought you were asleep." Mike stammers, a crease between his eyebrows. Kate rolls her eyes and swats a hand in his direction. It misses by several centimetres, but Kate hadn't really intended to hit him anyway. "Come on, Kate." Mike stretches slightly, grinning his wide smile at her, then lowers his voice conspiratorially and moves closer to her belly. "Mummy's being cranky again."

"Am not." Kate whines, closing both eyes once more.

Mike's smile widens as he whispers towards Kate's stomach, "And I'm the fun parent!"

* * *

_iii. _

"I heard that!" Kate cries. She feels a little overdramatic as she leaps around the corner, wooden spoon in hand, but it's worth it to see Mike jump at her sudden appearance. He has to throw out an arm behind him so that he doesn't stumble from his crouch, peering up innocently at Kate. She waves the wooden spoon in his direction, eyes narrowed. "We said we weren't going to influence her, right?"

"I... well..." Mike splutters for a moment, and Kate knows he's desperately searching for some sort of story that will get him out of this. Then, apparently deciding there is none, he frowns, gesturing towards their daughter sitting high up in her high-chair. With Mike still crouched somewhere level with her table tray, Sasha looks like an overlord surveying her kingdom. "Come on, Kate. You got Ben's first word. Why can't I have Sasha's?" He kneels once more, locking eyes with the five month old and continuing his baby talk. "Can you say Dada? Dada?"

"Mama." Kate corrects, moving forwards to stand in front of her daughter too. In some distant part of her mind, Kate stops to consider what the scene would look like to an outsider - two adults crouched in front of a highchair babbling while the infant sits, stony-faced. But then she decides she doesn't much care, as long as she wins. "Come on, Sash. Say Mum."

"Be'!" Sasha coos excitedly. Kate and Mike exchange glances.

"Did she say…" Kate begins, frowning.

"Be'!" Sasha giggles again, her eyes locked across the room towards the spot where their son had been busy joining blocks of Lego. At the call, though, he straightens up, a wide smile splitting his face.

"Yes!" Ben cheers, abandoning his Lego in favour of raising a triumphant fist in the air. "Good girl, Sashy." The three-year-old turns to his parents, looking smug. "I win."

Mike is the first to laugh, patting his wife on the back. "He's you all over, I swear."

* * *

_iv. _

"I heard that." Kate hisses. "And you will _not _be going to an _unchaperoned _party, no matter what excuses you and your mates cook up."

"You have superphonic hearing, I swear." Ben growls, rolling his eyes as he hangs up his mobile phone and turns to face his mother with a mutinous expression.

"It's super_sonic, _dork." Sasha corrects, not looking up from her comic book. "And you only want to go because Steph's going."

"Oh, shut up!" Ben groans, and Kate can see it's dangerously close to becoming the start of another teenager fight. "You're _so _annoying-"

Kate opens her mouth to intervene but, before she can, Mike takes a gulp of coffee and turns to their children. "Ben, don't tell your sister to shut up! Sash, don't call him a dork. You both know your Mum's got the hearing of a bat."

"Oi!" Kate chimes in, throwing a glare over at her husband, balling up a tea-towel and flinging it towards him.

"A very… sexy bat?" Mike continues tentatively, even as the towel catches him around the ear.

Kate rolls her eyes at his questioning look. "Mike, if you think bats are sexy, we should probably end this marriage here and now."

"Ew." Sasha closes her Batman comic and pushes her muesli away from her.

* * *

_v. _

"I heard that." Kate scoffs as she pokes her head into the room. "_Too old for her?" _She repeats incredulously, staring at her husband.

A smile curls over Mike's lips, even though he tries hard to smother it. "Don't, Kate." He turns his gaze back to his daughter. "You're only fifteen. You shouldn't be dating at all, let alone a seventeen-"

"Pot Kettle Black! You're ten years older than Mum!" Sasha scoffs violently. "You could have driven her to primary school!"

"She wasn't fifteen when we met!" Mike counters, feeling quite undermined with Kate smirking behind him. "Kate…" He turns incredulously to her. "Stop laughing! Back me up."

"Dad…" Ben rolls his eyes, but takes charge of the conversation all the same. "Luke and Sash have been friends since primary school. It's not like you don't know the guy. And in any case, Sash is sixteen. How old were you when you started dating?" He raises an eyebrow in challenge of this.

"That's…" Mike splutters, frowning slightly at Kate. "She's too young!"

Sasha turns to her. "Mum, how old were you when you first had a boyfriend!"

Kate pats Mike on the shoulder in a pitying sort of way. "Sash, be back by ten-thirty."

* * *

_vi. _

"I heard that." Kate murmurs as Mike tries and fails to smother his sob, even though she's misty-eyed as well and squeezing his arm so tightly it feels as though his fingers are about to fall off.

"He'll be okay." Sasha says, and there's something so odd about their daughter being the one to hold them all together. She too had hugged Ben, and the two of them had managed to avoid any last minute arguments, but now Sasha is rolling up her sleeves, as though preparing herself for battle. "Okay, guys. Pull yourselves together. it's Naval College. Not prison. Stop worrying."

"It's our job to worry, you know?" Mike counters as Kate drops her head to his shoulder so she doesn't have to stare at the spot where Ben's car had disappeared from.

"And PT is worse than prison." Kate adds, her voice muffled through Mike's jumper.

* * *

_plus bonus sad stuff for next chapter (read at own risk) _


	2. Chapter 2

"Kate." Mike reaches out and touches a hand to Kate's paper-white cheek, and even though he's expecting it, he's still not prepared for the way her skin still feels warm - not quite _alive _warm, but not cold either. As though there's still some residual heat left over, warming her, and strengthening her. If it were a book, or a TV show, or a movie, now would be the time when she'd wake up, would see him there and they'd laugh about him watching her sleep once more and _geez, you must kind of like me then, hey?_

In all the scenarios he's run through his head after the kids were born, he's never allowed himself to consider this. That Kate would be the one to leave first.

"Kate." He repeats, more desperately, and it's all he can do not to seize her shoulders and shake her roughly, to scream or shout or _something _because _just wake up, dammit! _

"Dad." A hand on his arms. Green eyes. Kate's, but not. _Sasha_. "Dad, she's... she's not coming back." Sasha's voice cracks, and still Mike can't believe it.

"No." He shakes his head, refusing to believe it. This is not the end. Kate is... Kate is strong and fierce and loyal and couragious and _this _is not the way she goes out. "No. _Kate_!"

The twenty-year-old turns to her older brother for support, eyes wide and fearful. "Ben?" She pleads. For a full ten seconds, Ben stares forwards too. Then, just as Mike has concluded that he will never move, Ben turns to face him.

"Dad." Ben's voice is deeper as he steps forward. He lifts Mike's arm over his shoulder and leads the way out of the morgue, half supporting his father's weight. "Dad, she's gone. She can't hear you."


End file.
